After School was, is, and shall be for the foreseeable future, my favorite girl group of all time — in large part due to songs like this one.
I don’t think Because Of You is After School’s best track, but I’m featuring it because it marks this group’s peak in popularity; they would never reach the highs set by this song again, despite later releases like Shampoo, Bang! and First Love being just as good (in my opinion).
In fact, thanks to some spectacular mismanagement by their agency, Pledis Entertainment, and the abuse of their “graduation” concept (a concept similar to AKB48), After School is currently on unspoken hiatus, with their last release being in 2014. With newer groups like Seventeen and Pristin filling this void left by one of Korea’s most original and talented groups, it remains to be seen whether After School will descend into even greater irrelevancy or not.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.